Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Sat, 28 Aug 1993 03:30:32 -0400 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by eli.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Sat, 28 Aug 1993 03:29:15 -0400 Message-Id: <199308280729.AA17429@eli.CS.YALE.EDU> Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 1627; Sat, 28 Aug 93 03:27:49 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 3510; Sat, 28 Aug 93 03:30:34 EDT Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1993 03:27:57 EDT Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch Status: RO X-Status: X-From-Space-Date: Fri Aug 27 23:27:57 1993 X-From-Space-Address: @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET QUICK START LOJBAN [what is Lojban omitted] This booklet copyright 1990 by The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax, Va. USA 22031-1303 (703) 385-0273 LOJBAN QUICK PRONUNCIATON GUIDE ... [omitted] LOJBAN NAMES (CMENE) Cmene always end in a consonant. They are the only Lojban words that end in a consonant. They are always followed by a pause, indicated in print by a period. They may not include the syllables la, lai, or doi within them. They are often preceded by la ("the one named") or doi ("O", or "Hey", indicating direct address.) They are usually not capitalized. Lojbanized form for .adolf. xitlr. Adolf Hitler crlak. xolmz. Sherlock Holmes maRIS. .antuaNET. Marie Antoinette .uinstn. tcrtcil. Winston Churchill .eibry'em. linkyn. Abraham Lincoln mixeil. gorbatcof. Mikhail Gorbachev .aizek. .ezimov. Isaac Asimov .arnld. cuartzynegr. Arnold Schwartznegger djanis. djaplin. Janis Joplin meris. tailr. mor. Mary Tyler Moore djan. .endrsn. John Anderson .eduard. KEnydis. Edward Kennedy .ilizabet. djordn. Elizabeth Jordan djiordj. buc. George Bush ranld. reigyn. Ronald Reagan ritcrd. niksn. Richard Nixon djimis. kartr. Jimmy Carter lindn. djansn. Lyndon Johnson frenkln. ROsevelt. Franklin Roosevelt KEnadas. Canada MExikos. Mexico nuiork. New York pakipsis. Poughkeepsie xainrix. ximlr. Heinrich Himmler don. ki'otes. Don Quixote sfietlonys. Svetlana xrucTCOF. Khrushchev .iulius. tsezar. Julius Caesar margret. maglaxln. Margaret McLaughlin rut. RItcardsan. Ruth Richardson dorytis. tampsn. Dorothy Thompson To Lojbanize a name: eliminate double consonants and silent letters. Convert all sounds to their closest Lojban equivalent. If the name ends in a vowel, add some consonant that sounds good. If the stress is not on the next-to-last syllable, capitalize the one stressed. If la, lai, or doi appear, substitute something like ly, ly'i, or do'i, respectively. GRAMMAR- THE BIG PICTURE A lot of Lojban will look strange, and familiar things will be done in strange ways. It is a lot simpler than it looks at first. The strangeness comes partly from building the grammar around formal logic, and partly from making the accomodations needed so that present-day computers could take dictation, transcribe, parse, and translate it easily. English sentences are made of subjects, verbs, objects, etc. Lojban sentences (bridi) are made of selbri and sumti. Some vocabulary- bridi x1 is a lojban predicate with meaning x2 and arguments x3 ("sentence") selbri the central predicate-word (brivla) of the sentence cu indicates (if necessary) that the selbri follows sumti x1 is an argument of predicate/function x2 cmene x1 is the name of x2 to/used by x3 cmavo "little word", grammatical structure word brivla "bridi-valsi", predicate-word "elide" English word meaning "to leave out" vau indicates (if necessary) that there are no more sumti for this selbri. (usually elided.) Lojban uses the meaning of "predicate" from formal logic: a predicate is a set of arguments (x1, x2, x3, and so forth) and the relationship between them, taken as a unit. Selbri and sumti are in turn made of brivla, cmavo, and cmene, (predicate-words, structure words, and names) which are the ultimate "parts of speech" in Lojban. Many grammatical structures in Lojban have opening markers, and corresponding closing markers called terminators. The terminators are available if necessary to make clear where one structure ends and another begins. Usually there are other ways of determining this, so terminators more often than not may be left out, or elided. Sometimes I will show an elidable word in brackets. More on this later. Basic structure of utterance: sentence .i sentence .i sentence .i sentence ni'o sentence .i sentence .i sentence .i sentence .i sentence ni'o sentence .i sentence .i sentence fa'o ".i" indicates the start of a new sentence. "ni'o" indicates the start of a new topic or paragraph. "fa'o" indicates end of message. "fa'o" may usually be elided. Basic structure of sentence: at least one sumti before the selbri. sumti sumti ... sumti [cu] selbri sumti sumti...[vau] ctuca x1 teaches audience x2 ideas/methods x3 about subject x4 by doing/being x5 tavla x1 talks/speaks to x2 about x3 kurji x1 takes care of x2, x1 is a caretaker of x2 e.g. mi [cu] ctuca do ta [vau] x1 selbri x2 x3 teacher to-teach student ideas/methods I teach you that. or: mi'o [cu] tavla le ctuca [ku] ko'a [vau] x1 selbri x2 x3 speaker to-talk spoken-to about subject (You & me) talk to the teacher about it. or: ?xu mi do ctuca ta x1 x2 selbri x3 Is it true that I to you teach that? or: le ctuca cu kurji le tavla x1 selbri x2 caretaker takes care of the one taken care of The teacher takes care of the talker. or: do ?ma kurji x1 x2 selbri You take care of what? or: mi'o ?mo le ctuca x1 selbri x2 You and I do what with the teacher? Again, Lojban sentences are made of selbri and sumti. Selbri may be of several types, including the following: Gismu are 5-letter predicates. (We have about 1,360.) Lujvo are shortened, compound gismu. (Potentially millions.) La'evla are lojbanized words borrowed from other languages. ?mo is the "question selbri", which may be used anywhere that a selbri might. "Please fill in this blank." Se brivla are "converted predicates", of which more soon. Tanru are multiple brivla, of which even more later. Sumti may include: "Pronoun" sumti, pro-sumti: mi, do, mi'o, ti, ta, tu, (etc.) lerfu, "letters", serving as pro-sumti: .abu, by, cy, (etc.) descriptions and names: le brivla [ku], la cmene [ku] zo'e "something unspecified", placeholder ?ma Question sumti, "Please fill in this blank." sumti clauses, (very useful), of which more eventually. Lots of new words are to be expected, with a new language. Two pages of vocabulary next, in one big chunk; then piece by piece, with examples. TWO PAGES OF VOCABULARY ...[omitted] BRIDI AND PLACE STRUCTURES klama x1 comes/goes to x2 from x3 via route x4 using x5 x1 is the traveler x2 is the destination x3 is the starting point x4 is the route x5 is the means of transportation e.g. la vlad. drakulas. cu klama la lndn. la translvanias. le x1 selbri x2 x3 x4 xamsi le bloti [vau] x5 Vlad Dracula comes to London from Transylvania over the sea by boat. cliva x1 leaves/goes away from x2 via route x3 using x4 Obviously "cliva" is close to "klama" in meaning, but not the same, as they have different place structures. e.g la vlad. cu cliva la translvanias. le xamsi [zo'e] [vau] x1 selbri x2 x3 x4 Vlad leaves Transylvania by sea. English has place structures too. "John gives Sam the stake" has a different meaning than "Sam gives John the stake". The change in position results in a change in meaning. We don't usually think of them, as we have many other ways to indicate what relationships hold between words. Lojban has these, too; we'll get to them later. Usually, counting the sumti from the front of the sentence gives you the places of the sumti. But sometimes we want to skip some, or put them in a different order. "fa" is a tag indicating that what follows is the first-place (x1) sumti of the bridi. "fe, fi, fo, fu" indicate the x2, x3, x4, and x5 sumti, repectively. dunda x1 gives x2 to x3 tcidu x1 reads x2 from medium/document x3 cusku x1 expresses/says x2 to x3 in form/media x4 preti x1 is a question/query about x2 by x3 to x4 <> preti fi la van. xelsin. ( x1 selbri x5 )=x1 selbri x3 "Dracula is coming how?" asks Van Helsing. .i le ninmu goi ko'a cu tcidu zo'e le krili bolci The woman reads (something unspecified) from the crystal sphere. .i ko'a cusku <> x1 selbri x2=( x1 selbri x5 ) The woman says "The blood-drinker comes by boat." If one of these tags is used, any untagged sumti following are assumed to count from the tag. e.g. "di'u preti fi mi do", "That (the previous sentence) is a question by me to you." CONVERTED BRIDI- SE, TE, VE, XE se exchanges 1st and 2nd sumti of the bridi te " 1st and 3rd " " " " ve " 1st and 4th " " " " xe " 1st and 5th " " " " se, te, ve, xe are called "conversion operators". The effect is a lot like "passive voice" in English. la van. xelsin. te preti fa <> x3 selbri x1=( x5 selbri x1 ) Van Helsing asks "How comes Vlad?" .i <> se cusku le krili bolci tcidu ( x1 selbri x5 )=x2 selbri x1 "He comes by boat", says the crystal-ball-reader. (Notice that here the "ri" refers to the last sumti in the "quoted world".) lasna x1 fastens/connects/attaches x2 to x3 with x4 se lasna x2 is fastened by x1 to x3 with x4 te lasna to x3 is fastened x2 by x1 with x4 ve lasna with x4 is fastened x2 to x3 by x1 le lasna the one who fastens le se lasna the "fastenee" le te lasna the thing fastened to le ve lasna the means of fastening cfari x1 initiates/starts x2 from prior state x3 tagji x1 is tight on/in x2 at locus x3 le skori ku ve lasna le nanmu le ckana le nixli x4 selbri x2 x3 x1 With the rope is fastened the man, to the bed, by the girl. ("ku" is the closing marker for "le". Why is "ku" needed here, if before it was always elided? Because if we wrote "skori ve lasna" the dumb computer parser would think we were making a compound bridi, a tanru- see below. We need a clear ending to the x1 sumti before the selbri can begin. I've been using "cu" to do this in the earlier examples, and I choose to use "ku" here.) .i ri cmila le se lasna .i ri se tagji le ve lasna x1 selbri x2 x2 selbri x1 She laughs at the bound one. On him are tight the bonds. .i le cinse te venfu ku se cfari The sexual revenge is begun. x2 selbri gasnu x1 does x2 to/with x3 dukse x1 is an excess of x2 by standard x3 bapli x1 forces/compels x2 to do/be x3 by means x4 nitcu x1 needs x2 for purpose x3 under conditions x4 cpacu x1 gets/acquires x2 from x3 for purpose x4 zukte x1 takes action x2 with purpose/goal x3 frati x1 reacts/responds with x2 to x3 under conditions x4 jmina x1 adds/combines x2 to x3 with result x4 xenru x1 regrets/rues x2 cpedu x1 requests/asks x2 of/from x3 in manner x4 spuda x1 replies to x2 with response x3 pikci x1 begs/pleads/supplicates x2 for x3 xrani x1 injures/harms/damages x2 at/in x3 by means x4 snuti x1 is accidental/unintentional on the part of x2 culno x1 is full with x2 banzu x1 suffices for x2 under conditions x3 djica x1 desires/wants x2 for x3 fraxu x1 forgives x2 for doing/being x3 dirba x1 is dear/precious/emotionally valued to x2 ckini x1 is related to x2 by relation x3 This might be called the "quick and dirty" way to teach vocabulary. (Sorry about that.) These are examples of gismu, 5- letter predicates that are the root words of the language. To make sentences, you "fill in the blanks" (x1, x2, etc.) with names, descriptions, pro-sumti, placeholders, questions, or clauses.